Bakken Crude Leaked from Improved Tanker Cars

A train loaded with Bakken crude oil needed to have more than a dozenleaking tank cars removed at three separate stops as it traveled throughIdaho and crossed Washington state in mid-January.

The leaking train, which was headed from North Dakota’s Bakken region tothe Tesoro refinery in Anacortes on Jan. 12, was detected just two monthsafter an oil-stained rail tank car was discovered at BP Cherry Point.

Loaded with roughly 100 cars of crude oil, the train was “found to have avery small amount of oil leaking from the top of a total of 14 cars,”according to BNSF spokeswoman Courtney Wallace. BNSF reported that a totalvolume of less than 25 gallons of oil from all 14 cars was found only onthe tops and sides of tank cars, and no oil was found on the ground.

“The train crew first noticed oil on the side of one tank car in Hauser,Idaho,” Wallace wrote in an emailed response to The Bellingham Herald.“Following an inspection of the train, the tank car was removed fromservice and no other tank cars appeared to be impacted.”

After leaving Hauser, a small town just across the state line fromSpokane, the train continued along BNSF lines, following the ColumbiaRiver to Vancouver, Wash. There, seven more tank cars were found to haveslow leaks from valves on top of the cars, which were inspected by bothBNSF and the Federal Railroad Administration, Wallace wrote. Those carswere removed from the train.

The train was inspected again in Auburn, Wash., where another six carswere found to have leaking top valves and were pulled off the train,Wallace wrote.

Washington state officials at the Utilities and Transportation Commissionwere alerted to the leaking train after cars had already been removed. TheFRA, a UTC partner agency, asked the state’s lone federally certifiedhazardous materials inspector to take a look, according to testimony thatUTC Chairman David Danner gave to a legislative committee Feb. 3.

The incident is currently under investigation, and official details maynot be available to the public for about a month, said Jason Lewis, UTCtransportation policy adviser.

Neither the UTC or BNSF would comment on what might have caused the leaks,leaving that to be revealed by the investigation.

The cars involved were higher-standard CPC-1232 cars, which some oilcompanies have started using after several fiery derailments causedconcerns about older DOT-111 rail cars, which have been found more likelyto puncture or burst. The 1232 cars have thicker shells, head shields andimproved fittings on top the car. All Bakken crude rolling throughWashington is being transported in the newer cars, according to railroadofficials.

BNSF regularly inspects all 32,500 miles of its tracks, Wallace said. Mostkey routes are inspected four times per week, more than federallyrequired.

“If there’s a car leaking, they will do a visual on-site, on the tracks,and if it needs to, beyond that as well,” Wallace said.

Oil safety in the Legislature

As dueling oil safety bills are making their way through the WashingtonState Legislature, UTC Chair Danner told legislators the incidenthighlights the commission’s glaring need for more rail inspectors. In thiscase, the UTC inspection was delayed as the hazardous materials inspectorhad to travel from Eastern Washington across the state to get to thetrain.

“I can’t tell you the number of gallons that came out, but it wassignificant,” Danner told the House Environment Committee. “It wasbasically leaking all the time the train was traveling through the state.”

The commission, which currently has only four FRA-certified inspectors forthe state, has requested more funding as lawmakers work on the nextbiennial budget.

The oil safety bill before the House committee on Tuesday, HB 1449, wasintroduced at the request of Gov. Jay Inslee. Among the measures it wouldimplement is an increase in the oil spill response tax, currently leviedon crude oil transported in the state by marine vessels.

The bill would expand the tax so it is also levied on crude oiltransported by pipeline and rail car in the state, and increase theportion that pays for spill prevention from four cents to 10 cents perbarrel. That increase would help in part to pay for improvements like newinspectors for the UTC.

Oil and railroad company representatives at the hearing said they wouldsupport levying the tax on crude by rail, as it would make up for theamount of money lost by transporting crude on trains instead of ships.However, they expressed their concern with the increase in the tax.

“WSPA supports the expansion of the barrel tax to include crude oiltransported by rail. We support the robust spills program at (theDepartment of) Ecology,” Frank Holmes, representative for the WesternStates Petroleum Association, testified before the committee. “WSPAopposes the expansion of the barrel tax to include product in pipelines.WSPA is also opposed to the 150 percent increase in the tax rate from 4cents to 10 cents.”

Another oil safety bill, sponsored by Sen. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, ismaking its way through the Senate. That bill, SB 5057, also would extendthe barrel tax to oil-by-rail, but not to pipeline, and does not includethe increased tax rate.

“Some of you may have seen an article by McClatchy recently about a verysignificant gap,” Farrell said, referring to a leaking oil car that wasfound once the train had reached its destination, BP Cherry Pointrefinery, Nov. 5. “There was a leak of about 1,600 gallons of oil and itwasn’t for a month that key agencies got information about this.”

In that case, Federal Railroad Administration inspectors found oil stainson the sides and wheels of a tank car that was being unloaded at therefinery. An inspection revealed an open valve and a missing plug.

The incident was not initially reported to any local or state officials,though there are state and federal hotlines for reporting spills. Thestate requires any spill of hazardous materials to be reported within 30minutes to a 24-hour hotline.

The Department of Ecology, which responds to inland oil spills, the U.S.Coast Guard, which responds to spills along navigable waterways, and theWhatcom County Unified Emergency Coordination Center all first learned ofthe November incident when a McClatchy reporter contacted them forinformation on Jan. 21.

Federal and state regulators are also investigating that case.

The Jan. 12 incident was reported to the state’s hotline on Jan. 23, saidKarina Shagren, spokeswoman for the state Emergency Management Division.

When asked why the incident was reported more than a week later, Wallacereplied that BNSF staff members thought they were following properprotocols, and amended their Washington reporting policy followingdiscussions with the UTC in January.

“We take these matters very seriously, and will continue to be vigilant ininspections, working closely with our customers and the FRA,” Wallacewrote.

In response to the apparent gap in protocols, the UTC is sending lettersto all railroad companies that travel through the state to remind them thecommission requires reports of any release of hazardous materials “within30 minutes of learning of the event” (emphasis as it appears in the UTCletter, which McClatchy obtained in a public records request).

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